Wireless subscriber devices are widely used and have become an essential aspect of modern life. Wireless subscriber devices such as pagers, mobile phones, PDA's (personal data assistants) are used for work, for personal activities, and as a way to keep in contact with friends and family. Often these devices are used to enable voice communications. Increasingly, however, these devices are used to share data messages without initiating a voice communication. These data messages may be for example, text messages, image files, video files, or audio files. As the functionality of these devices increases, their use and acceptance continues to expand. Further, users have become more reliant upon their wireless devices, and therefore demand high quality service and performance.
In the current competitive market for wireless devices, a company's reputation and brand is mostly determined by the quality of its products. For example, users have an expectation for their wireless services will initiate with little delay. Currently when users activate their mobile devices to make a call or initiate a data service, part of the process requires that mobile devices scan large access lists to find an active network. In some wireless technologies this access list is referred to as a Preferred Roaming List, while it will have other names in other wireless technologies. The access list is prioritized to have the most preferred networks listed first, and less desirable networks further down on the list. In this way, the manufacturer of the mobile device or the service provider may preset the preferred network connections. When the mobile device is first activated, or when it is taken to a new geographic location and turned on, the mobile device will need to search the access list to find the most preferred network connection. In some cases, the access list can have hundreds of entries, and the mobile devices may take a minute or more to locate a service. After finding an active service, the mobile device may locally store a recently used access list that is first used before searching through the full list.
For example, if a person flies from San Diego to Boston, and turns on a mobile phone when deplaning in Boston, the mobile phone will have to initiate a search of the access list, and since the mobile phone's geographic location has significantly changed, it may have to search tens or even hundreds of possible networks before finding an active Boston network. Once the phone finds a network in Boston, it enters that network into its shorter list of recently used networks, so that the next search will be faster. However, the user has been without mobile phone usage for some time, and may become impatient with the long “searching” indicator on the mobile phone. Once a network connection is made, it is used for all voice and data communications.
In order for mobile devices to have more utility, mobile devices may now support multiple wireless technologies. This enables a single wireless mobile device to have a better chance of always being able to find an active network. A wireless device that supports multiple wireless technologies is often referred to as a multi-mode mobile device. For example, a multi-mode mobile device may support CDMA2000, GSM, WLAN and WiMax. When the multi-mode mobile device is activated, it searches its access list to find the first active network. It will normally search its recently used list, but if none is available, it will begin searching the full access list. Typically, this access list has been set and prioritized by the primary service provider, so the access list will be prioritized to maximize economic benefit to the service provider. In some cases, the multi-mode mobile device will search all possible connections for one technology, and if no connection is found, move to search the next less preferred technology. The access list is searched technology-by-technology, and network-by-network, until the first available network is found. This first-found connection is then used for all voice and data communications. In such a multi-mode environment, the multi-mode mobile device may take an exceptionally, and unacceptably, long time to search through the available wireless technologies to find an available network.
As wireless technologies advance, some technologies are developed for specific purposes, or are better suited for particular applications. For example, some wireless technologies are particularly well suited for high speed data transmission, such as WiFi, but the technology performs best in static or nomadic applications where the receiver has only limited mobility. Other wireless technologies, such as CDMA1xrtt, have excellent voice handling capabilities, support full-speed mobility, but have slower data rates than some other wireless technologies. In using these multi-mode devices, a user typically makes a decision as to which technology is best suited for the task to be performed. For example, if a user wants to surf the net while at a coffee shop, the user will select to search for a WiFi connection, and may even have to physically or logically enable WiFi radio. In another example, if the user is moving in a car and desires to make a voice call, the user may simply use the mobile device's default CDMA radio.
Therefore, a need exists for a multi-mode wireless device that simplifies the mode selection process, as well as reduces the time it takes to make the selection and acquire a network.